EAN: 9783898215732

DECADENCES - MORALITY AND AESTHETICS IN BRITISH...

This collection seeks to examine the intersections of aesthetics and morality  of what
Decadence means to art and society at various moments in British literature. Both artistic and
social values are inflected by their histories  and  as time passes  so the definition of what
it means to be D decadent alters. The very ideas of the decline from a higher standard  of
social malaise  of aesthetic ennui  all presume certain facts about the past  the present  and
the linear nature of time itself. To reject the past as a given  and to relish the subtleties
of present nuance  is the beginning of Decadence. Purportedly decadent artists focused upon the
fleeting present  ascribed value to experiencing the aesthetic moment in its purest form  and
it was precisely due to this focus upon living in  and for  the moment that society often
responded by expressing moral contempt for the perceived hedonism of art. The aesthetic
rejection of contemporary value added to the conflict between the literary and social
inflections of Decadent interpretation. The truly decadent was condemned by artists as the
stranglehold society maintained on individual interpretation and the interpretation of oneself.
This conflict underlies the range of essays in the collection.

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